Smart Glasses for Hearing Impaired

In 2021, my neighbor approached me with a unique request: to restore some old  photographs. Intrigued and eager to help, I was excited to see what she had. She presented me with 15 historical photographs from Nagaland, India, dating from 1959 to 1982. These images, belonging to the Head Hunter tribe, were the only existing photographs of her grandmother and their community, making them invaluable.

Recognizing the immense historical significance of these photographs, I immediately set to work. My first step was to scan the images to create digital copies. This would allow for more efficient restoration and preservation.

During this project, I utilized Google Colab notebooks for image restoration and discovered two powerful tools:

Microsoft - Bring Old Photos Back to Life: A supervised learning-based image restoration algorithm.

GPEN - GAN Prior Embedded Network for Blind Face Restoration in the Wild: A GAN-based approach for face restoration in photographs.

The results were remarkable, showcasing the power of AI in bringing old photos back to life. However, I faced significant challenges due to the lack of high-end hardware and a stable Internet connection, which made it difficult to work on high-resolution scanned images. Despite these obstacles, the project underscored my resourcefulness and commitment to preserving historical artifacts through innovative technology.